One of the two nuclear reactors at the Torness power station near Edinburgh has shut down for an ‘unplanned outage’ – legacy industry jargon for unplanned maintenance due to a mechanical or component failure – its operator has said.
EDF Energy – the French state-owned nuclear generator which owns the British civil nuclear power stations – said the 640MW Torness 1 reactor went offline at 13:56 on Monday. The unit was expected to remain unavailable until 13:30 on 21 July 2014
Torness station director Paul Winkle said there were no safety, health or environmental impacts.
In a message posted on the Torness website, Winkle said: “During testing of the reactor protection system, reactor one automatically shut down. We test this system, which is very sensitive, on a regular basis to prove the reactor will always shut down when required.”
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